• Well, fuck them. I don’t care how much money or power they have - there’s nothing they can do to stop me from being kind to strangers or giving to those in need. There’s not enough money in the universe to budge that.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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      20 days ago

      Yeah, but they can create the conditions where altruism is a non beneficial trait that ultimately leads to your untimely end. The goal isn’t for them to personally intervene in people’s lives, just to create the conditions that are most desirable to maintain their own position.

      That’s why they’ve spent decades attacking the kindness of the working class. Turning the idea of charity into an insult, Christianity into prosperity Gospel, and being neighborly into an immigrant sympathizer. They want the lower class to idolize the same kind of disregard for empathy that made them rich to begin with.

      • Yeah, but they can create the conditions where altruism is a non beneficial trait that ultimately leads to your untimely end.

        Then I will end, with the world in a better place than when I began.

        The goal isn’t for them to personally intervene in people’s lives, just to create the conditions that are most desirable to maintain their own position.

        And in doing so they render themselves utterly powerless to stop people like me from doing good.

        That’s why they’ve spent decades attacking the kindness of the working class. Turning the idea of charity into an insult, Christianity into prosperity Gospel, and being neighborly into an immigrant sympathizer. They want the lower class to idolize the same kind of disregard for empathy that made them rich to begin with.

        You’re dead on about that. However, I also think this creates prime conditions for people who never had any intention of being good people to say “gee now I can’t be a good person, how terrible!” Well fuck that, I’m gonna do it anyway and laugh at the ultrarich who think their money and influence can accomplish anything they wish.

          • Yeah, it’s hard as fuck to go on when so many things are coming from so many directions, at so many levels, telling me to just fuck off and die. Student financial aid cuts, DEI cuts, degree program cuts, new laws against trans people activities, higher costs of living across the board, daily news of violence and unrest either started or supported by my government… the list just goes on and on. But you know what? I woke up today, and I’m gonna make it their fucking problem until I don’t.

            • TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today
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              20 days ago

              Yep, all you can do is your best. Just keep one foot in front of the other and you’ll eventually end up old and tired, but hopefully content and with a mostly clear conscience.

              Things have always been more fucked up than the general public likes to acknowledge, but I do admit that I really feel for younger people. I’m middle aged and have seen a lot in my time, but it does seem like the kids are going to have an even tougher go at it than I did, which is saying a lot. At least I got to see the analog world, before the towers fell and America cranked the crazy to 11, a time before the end of history.

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      20 days ago

      Don’t fuck billionaires. There needs to be an embargo on sex for billionaires.

      Imagine how drastically the world could change if they need to give away enough of their wealth to put them below $1B net worth before they can get laid again!

      • Phantaloons@piefed.zip
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        19 days ago

        I often wonder if our broken and fucked up capitalistic world wouldn’t do a complete backflip into the dirt once all that wealth poured out into the hands of common folk.

        Like, it only “”“works”“” if the system itself is corrupt. The utilities, medicines and food the currency pays for are just as they are, there isn’t more because people have more money to buy it. Wouldn’t the result be everything inflating in price to insane heights?

        I’m not justifying billionares, hell no, just making sure all the people who want the dam to break know what to do with the water.

        • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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          19 days ago

          Wouldn’t the result be everything inflating in price to insane heights?

          I don’t think so. That’s a rationalization mainstream economists use for not fixing the system. They’ll say shit like “low unemployment rates are bad for the economy because if everyone has a job then they can all afford to spend money and that will cause inflation.” It’s complete bullshit based in a flawed idea of what makes an economy “healthy.”

          “Supply and Demand” is more dogma than science. We’ve seen time and again that it only holds true when the wealthy want it to hold true, when it benefits them. Otherwise they manipulate numbers and make them do whatever else they want to do.

          Would a total wealth redistribution cause some turbulence? Maybe at first, but not to the degree you fear. It would break through the corporate capture that allows them to keep prices artificially high

          More likely though, it will take a time of great turbulence and upheaval for that redistribution to occur; such as the coming bursting of the AI bubble compounded with the failure of the US dollar, the insolvency of the US government, and all the second- and third- order effects of that and bad governance…